Turn the samples on and off by clicking the links to the left
Turn the samples on and off by clicking the links to the left
Mapplujo is a writing game devised by Jeff Noon and Steve Beard. Lena Sears has played the game with Adam Eisley on ShadowPuppet.net
Lena Sears 2/23/99
I try to imagine the world my grandmother describes for me. A world where an entire system of beliefs is being exchanged for new ones. A world where women, who have always been told that their place was at home, are suddenly thrust into the work world of men. A world where self expression is saved for those who can afford it. A world where ideas and beliefs, especially a woman's, are either critically analyzed or ignored. A world where opportunity is as scarce as peace. The world my grandmother grew up in.
A couple of years ago The Seattle Times ran a short article reporting the death of "Rosie the Riveter". A monumental figure in the 1940's, Rose Will Monroe symbolized the shift in not only the attitudes but behaviors of North American women. Defying the typical desired female attributes of the time, Rosie changed the minds of over 20 million women across the country, promoting the image of the strong female worker.
"Fear feeds fear when knowledge fails." ~Ovid's Metamorphoses
I see opportunity everywhere I look. The only person who has ever silenced my voice is myself, yet fear holds me back from a goal that is all but presented to me. When I was accepted into the University of Washington as a non-resident last year, I was thrilled! Finally I would have a chance to peruse my dream of becoming a performer at a price I could afford. Everything I need is before me. All I have to do is take it, yet fear stands in between me and my dream.
1964 -- Kitty Genovese is viciously stabbed to death in the courtyard of her apartment building. The attack lasts a full hour and a half while 38 frightened people watch safely from their apartment windows. Not one of them utters a word in her defense. Not one of them makes a call to save her life. 38 voices have simultaneously been silenced through fear.
As I was about to embark on my journey to college, my English professor pulled me aside and said, "The world is only as real as we make it out to be. Imagination is the only thing to be trusted!" I looked at her questioningly as she continued. "Don't be afraid to show the world who you are."
Rosie was working for her country. Living the new ideal for American women, she worked as a riveter building B-29 and B-24 military airplanes when she was "discovered"!
"The time you need to do something is when no one else is willing to, when people are saying it can't be done" ~ Berry Adams
It is 1941. The voice of a journalism professor forever changed my grandmother, Virginia's, life. Having very little opportunity available to her, he encouraged her to enter an oratory contest. She won first prize. Her topic: problems facing our country. The production of a show, from the first script to the last performance, became her life, allowing her a means of expression that women of her time were rarely exposed to. Virginia had found her voice.
1993 -- A thirteen year old girl has just begun a new school in a new state. While her classmates giggle in groups and discuss happenings she knows nothing about, she sits silently in the back of the class smiling broadly with a bright pink beret placed confidently upon her head. Though her class mates shout jests to the young girl, ruthlessly taunting and teasing her, their voices come off as no more than a silent whisper; while without saying a word her voice is herd.
A freshman, now, at the University of Oklahoma, Virginia jumps from class to class searching for a way to incorporate her ideas and beliefs into the world around her. A world that refuses to listen to a woman. That opportunity presents itself when that same professor of journalism, now the president of the University of Oklahoma, encourages a panel of trustees to interview her for the position of director for the University radio station. Now the world must listen.
1988 -- Small yet outspoken, a first grade boy bravely enters his classroom. It is not the first time he has done so, nor will it be the last, but this time is different. As he makes his way to the circle, his classmates and teacher regard him with expressions of pure astonishment. His once neatly combed black hair has been shaven in a style almost unacceptable to the time -- he proudly presents his Mohawk.
"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." ~Scott Adams
I was nine when I first entered a theater. It was as if no one existed but me and the magical space around me. The darkened stage. The raised ceilings. The smell of anticipation. The feeling that anything could and did happen here. This energy seeped into my soul -- fueled by nothing more than the creative force of acting. I was hooked! Never again would I view myself or the world around me in quite the same way.
It is 1942. Three of Virginia's brothers have been called away to war: Frank and Bob are stationed overseas, while Jimmy waits in the states. The country rests in a continual state of questioning. When will the war be done? Why exactly are we fighting? Is it worth the life of my son? Virginia combines her position as director of University radio with her desire to voice her opinions and spread the word, creating a time to broadcast news of the war on a daily basis.
"Spite of pride in erring reason's spite, when truth is clear whatever is, is right" ~ Alexander Pope's "An essay on man"
About three years ago, I had what therapists coin as an "actor's nightmare". I had just walked on stage to perform my opening monologue when I realized I couldn't speak. No matter how hard I tried, I could not utter a single syllable. Frantically I searched the audience, to try to make eye contact, to try to make them understand, make them listen, make them understand, make them do anything that would tell me it was OK, but I couldn't. They wouldn't hear me.
"Rosie the Riveter" is held responsible for the change in the attitudes of women during World War Two. Due in part to Rosie and her poster perfect fame, the number of working women jumped to 20 million during the four year period, all ready to finally expose themselves to the world.
"There is only one direction, and time is its measure." ~ Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
The wind whistles through Virginia's hair as she rides her bike, Nemo, to the next site for a remote broadcast. Careless and wild in a time of uncertainty and fear, it is that spirit that pushes her beyond what others have expected. She is free. Waiting at the top of the hill with his gold rimmed leather briefcase, is a reporter from Variety. His hair is neatly combed back, and his suit and tie are freshly pressed. He smiles. He has found the first woman to ever run a radio station.
An eighteen year old boy sits in a green and blue robe among 400 of his fellow students. The names are slowly read from a list as each student in turn stands and accepts his or her diploma. He is different. He did not have the support that his peers had. He was not expected to come this far. He is the first of his family to receive his diploma. He stands . . .
I remember the almost sympathetic look my friend gave me when I announced I would be majoring in theater. "Well, I know who I won't be borrowing money from," she said with a wink and a smile. I smiled too. All my life I had done what was expected: gone to the right school, made the right grades, had the right friends. Theater was mine. I've never done it for fame or glory; I've never cared what anyone else had to say about it. It is the one thing in this world I own. It is who I am, and fear, in the face of imagination, doesn't stand a chance.
Rosie was used by the popular media to encourage women to take over men's jobs while they were away, and when they came back, she was used to encourage them to go back home. What is not mentioned, what is left out of the history books, is that immediately following the war, Rosie did not leave her job. She continued working until she retired at an old age.
Years later, as she tells me the story with a far away look, the prestige of the position she held has faded. An insignificant mile marker on a highway across a nation. But Virginia Hawk found something in her life that neither propaganda nor prominence could take from her: She had found her voice, and the radio station was the outlet she needed to express that voice.
"Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal." ~ Vaull Starr
Lena Sears Collage Piece July 2002
Justine awoke in a cold sweat remembering only traces of white figures trapped in an all black room. Her boyfriend, Jerry, snored softly beside her, unperturbed by her sudden awakening. She thought about waking him up to tell him, but what could he do? He'd hold her and brush the dampened hair away from her forehead, mumble something about being safe in the real world and soundly drift back to sleep. She didn't want that. She didn't want to be the helpless child afraid of the dark, but she was afraid; afraid of her longing to return to the world of white faced men that she had created.
She had met Jerry in the theatre. He was the prince in Edgar Allen Poe's Mask of the Red Death and she was the countess. They had died tragically together in each other arms at the hands of a horrible pestilence, and from that moment on he knew they were meant to be together. She didn't want to be an actress. She had chosen the career as a way of rebelling against her parents. No sane parent could wish the life of an actor for their child; always struggling to make ends meet - not knowing if or when the next job would come along. She could end up in the streets or worse yet, back at home. Her parents had supported her choice with the unquestioning approval that had been a theme throughout her life.
All you have to do to cry is to think of something sad that happened to you and the tears will come, one of her first directors had told her. Justine remembered the crash. Her brother had sworn that he was alright to drive, and lacking any other options, she got into the car. A world of safety was shattered by the reality of the Ford pickup truck as they plunged into its side door. She was pinned between the seat and the window that wouldn't open. Through a crack, she could feel the cool breeze caress her forehead; could smell the woody pine beyond the vehicle. Her parents had cried for a year straight. No matter how vividly she remembered the crash, Justine never cried on stage.
She lay in bed listening to Jerry's breathing. He was performing in twelve hours; the lead in Shakespeare's A Comedy of Errors. She had promised to be there. The car was slow to start but once she got onto the freeway, it slid across the pavement like ice. Jerry would be sad that she was gone, and her parents would miss her - but they could all find another pretty little actress. The road blurred into a surrealist landscape of color as she finally found her place of sadness.
Lena Sears July 9, 2002
The wedding was three weeks away, and their lives were already slipping into a routine. She would cook nightly and vacuum the floors on Sundays. He would do the dishes and take out the trash. Every night following dinner, they would go for a walk. "It is important to get fresh air and exercise," he would tell her. "We're not children anymore."
His hand felt warm inside of hers, providing a stark contrast to the cold, torrential downpour around them. Headlights momentarily blinded the couple with each passing car, then disappeared into the night like a fading memory. Fearing that the heavy ring he had given her might slip off with the water, she balled her hand into a tightly woven fist and gazed up at him through dripping eyelids.
"Let's go this way tonight," she suggested as she guided him down a darkened street they had yet to explore. He offered no resistance, only pulled her closer so that the umbrella might cover them both. He was always thinking of things like that; making sure she wore a coat when they went out; buying her blankets and scarves for special occasions.
A child's playground was illuminated in the pale orange glow of the overhead fluorescent street lamp. Pools of water collected on the base of the slide and seats of the swings. She let her hand slip from his and was greeted by the piercing cold of each drop of rain as it hit her skin. "You'd better stay under the umbrella," he warned her. "You're likely to catch a cold." His words slid off her as effortlessly as the rain. She began to climb the slippery steps of the plastic slide. Water instantly soaked her pants. Wind raced through her hair. Mud splashed her face. Her stomach was in her throat. With childlike glee she screamed, drowning out his silent protests.
Lena Sears July 2002
In the nineties I fell in love twice. The first time was with a handsome prince; the second an ugly troll. I cried when my grandmother died and when my best friend left for college.
In the nineties, I went to school in an unfamiliar land where strangers smiled and little girls, who weren't so little, hiked their skirts up above the knee. I got a job because my parents told me not to and joined the theatre because they told me I should. I got a dog to keep me company, who always slept outside and a cat to entertain the dog who slept on my pillow next to me. The cat died two years later.
In the nineties, I swore I was going to be an actress; to make grown men cry and children laugh; to move to New York and walk down Broadway with its colorful lights and crazy characters. I graduated with a degree in Business. I stayed up late talking to strangers and called my parents once a month. I listened to conversations about the president's current one night stand in coffee shops as the smoke lazily drifted above our heads.
In the nineties, I took a job as a waitress for the money and quit when a customer spit in my face. I returned two months later. I learned to drive a stick shift and took the bus everywhere. I met students and scalars who spoke only of themselves and others.
In the nineties, I fell in love with a fairy tale and woke up with a broken heart.